Steve 'Flash' JuonIt’s pretty hard to find a well produced lo-fi hip-hop album that I don’t like. To say that “Quintal” shocked me then is an understatement; perhaps, it is even a repudiation of the words “well produced” in the opening sentence. It’s rather diabolical trying to parse this particular release. Ostensibly all the right elements are here. The samples are well chosen, the mix is clean, and Mura Kami obviously understands what notes are pleasing to the ear. Despite all of this things go horribly awry right at the start on “Yosei.”
If you’re of a certain age to have grown up listening to albums on cassette tape, you’re all too familiar with the sound of a tape player that’s got a worn belt in the drive, one which causes the playback to speed up and slow down in a way colloquially called “warbling.” In a worst case scenario this is also the sound you’d hear when the tape itself got caught in the head of the tape player, unspooling itself into a pile of spaghetti you’d have to pry from the mechanism while praying you didn’t snap the tape by pulling too hard. For three straight songs from the opener to “Reve” this unsettling and unpleasant sound effect is purposefully laid on top of each track. Why? FIIK.
I think Mura Kami finds it clever in a digital age to make you think a MP3 or higher quality lossless digital audio format could “snag” like a tape, but all it does is bring up unpleasant reminders of losing Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” to such a snag and being forced to buy the album again. Thankfully on the fourth track “Hollow” they abandon this gimmick and I’m finally able to find some peace of mind, but this only last for 72 seconds.
The opening part of “Quintal” is like nails on a blackboard, you get a quick break from that audio terror, and then we’re right back to the madness from the title track until the end. Mura Kami is defiantly committed to this gimmick and I will give them credit for sticking to their guns no matter how unlistenable I find it to be. Come to think of it nails on a blackboard would actually be more pleasant to the ear than this.
For the first time in ages I’ve genuinely got an “avoid this at all costs” recommendation for an instrumental rap album. In most cases they are at worst boring and at best pleasant background music. On rare occasions they are even bangers that sound like rap classics sans the rap vocals. “Quintal” is none of these things and deliberately so. It’s perplexing to think Mura Kami knows what a good rap song would sound like, and then just went out of their way to fuck it up and ruin it, but I’ve got to call it like it is here because that’s exactly what they did. The “tape pinched in a roller” production style should go away and never return.